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New Life Daily Devotion - Aug. 23, 2010

We continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.

Life is a journey that takes us beyond recovery from our past and into a hopeful future. By realizing we haven't "arrived," we can experience the excitement of pursuit. We can know the thrill of seeking after and achieving our goals. We don't have to pretend to be perfect or to know everything. We don't need to fear that one wrong move will destroy everything.

The apostle Paul said, "One way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead! I don't mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past, . . . I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us" (Philippians 3:11-14).

Paul could commit himself to know the "mighty power that raised him [Christ] from the dead" (Philippians 3:10) and admit his imperfections in the same breath. So can we! We haven't learned everything we need to know. So we, too, can pursue the future and leave the past behind us. As we take our inventory we need to check to see that we don't get stuck in the past. We need to make sure that recovery becomes a bridge to a bright new future instead of a circle of revolving past hurts.

The bridge to a hopeful future cannot be crossed with burdens from the past.